Savor the Moment
by the.goal.is.greatness
Summary: You don't know how lucky you are to be loved. [Haymitch x Maysilee] [Haymitch x unnamed girlfriend]


**Title:** Savor the Moment  
**Genre:** Romance / Tragedy  
**Rating:** T  
**Pairing:** Haymitch x Maysilee, Haymitch x girlfriend (unnamed in the series)  
**Spoilers:** The books, since Haymitch's backstory isn't in the movies  
**Summary:** You don't know how lucky you are to be loved.  
**Word Count:** 1,240  
**Warnings:** Violence

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**A/N:** I only vaguely remember Haymitch's backstory. So if I get something wrong, forgive me.

* * *

The sky is a bright, tragic blue – the kind of blue you really only see in paintings and holograms, unrealistically, fakely blue. It is blue like that in his memories, cloudless and brilliant and shaped by his own view of the past. He knows, _he knows_, that is not the real sky, not the real day, but memory is a funny thing. When times are bad – and they have been bad, these past few years, only just now getting better – your mind has a strange way of taking even the darkest of days in your past and turning them into something new.

Haymitch isn't a fool. He knows that District 12 has never been a quaint and beautiful place to live. It is dark and dreary, the air so thick with coal dust that most days it is hard to see the sky, let alone the sun. But in his dreams the sun is always shining, the sky is always vivid and surreal. And she – no, he won't say her name, won't even think it – but she is there, always, smiling, smiling, smiling. He sees the same look in Peeta's eyes when he thinks Katniss isn't watching. It is visceral and heart-wrenching, love pouring out from those eyes like waves, almost glowing with happiness.

In his dreams past and present overlap and collide. One days he sees Peeta and Katniss walking hand-in-hand down the street and in his dreams his fingers are intertwined with hers, fingertips brushing against one another with practiced ease. One evening at dinner he watches Peeta's eyes, warm and full of hunger, as he stares at Katniss and he remembers that look so well that it _hurts_. He knows what he will dream about even before he closes his eyes. There is skin on skin and open mouths trailing over jaw and collarbones. There are fingers tangled in hair, hands tangled in sheets, legs tangled in legs. It is heat and closeness and fear and love and happiness and sadness – but he doesn't want the dream to ever end. Even as he gasps awake, he presses his eyes closed, trying to hold onto the images. Her face, her hair, her smile, her everything.

But they trickle from his mind like water from a cracked glass, until, soon, there is nothing left but an empty container.

Then one day Peeta cuts his hand, small, insignificant, but bleeding. And the memories come again. She is there, again, angel bright and glowing, but the image twists and shifts and alters, and she is bleeding, dying, dead. Blood spilling from the mouth that only nights ago was whispering his name into his hair, limbs that once wrapped around him are snapped and broken, eyes glassy and dim, going dark, darker, darkest. Gone.

There are memories, too, in the way that Katniss looks at Peeta. It is always equal parts surprised and tentative. Not ever really sure that this is real. Oh, most days she knows that she is really back in District 12, in her victor's house, but she is never completely sure that someone can love her, that his love is real. He knows that look. He saw that look on his own face, reflecting back at him in streets and lakes. It is the look on his face when Maysilee tentatively brushes her hand against his after he takes out a pack of Careers. His hand is soaked with blood and he twitches away from her. But she reaches out again and grasps his hand tight and he feels something uncurl in his chest at the motion.

She – back home, his love – she would never understand this part of him. This thing that has _become_ a part of him. But Maysilee, she understands, she knows. And she accepts him for it, in spite of it, because of it. Some part of him, that he never allowed himself to dwell on, was worried. That he would come back so changed from these Games (if he even came back at all) that there would be no one left to love him. But he had found someone here. And even though he forced himself not to think about the fact that only one of them, if either, would make it home, it was enough for this moment to know that someone cared.

Watching Peeta and Katniss in their first Games play the love-sick fools made his stomach churn with… something like anger and regret all rolled into one. He and Maysilee had not been faking their connection, but they had not exploited it. He had had someone waiting for him, whom he loved with every ounce of his being. But maybe… maybe if they had done what he'd told Peeta and Katniss to do, they would both have lived. Maybe they could have been the spark. Maybe they both could have gone home. Spent the rest of their life having to pretend they loved each other, while his real love watching and pined – Gale years before his time.

Peeta and Katniss in the cave were suddenly Haymitch watching, terrified, as Maysilee leaned close, so close, to his blood spattered face and kissed him as lightly as butterfly wings. His breath stuttered out of him in a ragged gasp, unclenching the tight muscles of his chest so suddenly it was painful. It was different than the last girl he'd kissed – this was hesitant, tentative – but there were a thousand words in that kiss. It said _I accept you_. It said _It's okay_. It said _I'm here for you_.

But they hadn't done what District 12's pair of victor's did. They didn't play out their love story, didn't broadcast it, kept it hidden in stolen tiny moments to let the other know that they were going to be okay. But they weren't, he was too late to save her, too late, too late, too late. Katniss and Peeta returned home, together, to their families. Haymitch returned alone, to nothing but the broken bodies of everyone he had ever loved. Their dead eyes stared at him every time he blinked, until alcohol was the only way to sink into sweet, dark oblivion.

He slowly, softly, so subtly that they never even noticed, made sure his two victors knew how lucky they were. Let them come across photographs and books of past victors, past tributes with their families, to make them realize just how special they were. Mentioned Gale and his pretty new wife to let them know moving on was okay. Smiled indulgently when Peeta made romantic gestures, winked at Katniss when she blushed, made them at ease in their relationship. Because it was a precious gift and they should know that. They should know just how many victors actually went on to live happily. They should know that their love was a treasure that people searched their entire lives to find, and some never found it, and some had it cruelly wrenched from their hands.

So he tried to show them, to remind them, just how lucky they were.


End file.
